


The Loveliest Bride

by marchionessofblackadder



Series: A Crown of Roses [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 09:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchionessofblackadder/pseuds/marchionessofblackadder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While cleaning the Dark Castle, Belle finds a beautiful wedding veil in one of the rooms. She tries it on only to realize that she can’t take it off. She finds out that it will only come off after she goes through a wedding ceremony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Loveliest Bride

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Repeatinglitanies for this prompt!

Rumpelstiltskin paced slowly, one boot in front of the other upon the stone of his high tower, his pebbled finger tapping his chin in thought. What a tricky, sticky situation his little maid had gotten into this time. He’d thought the same when his pet in the dungeons had almost had her for a midday meal, and he’d thought it again when she’d tried tearing down the curtains from the west wing (knocking over the ladder to leave her hanging by the rungs and swinging in the air). But she had never tampered with magic before, until now, and the part of him that would usually salivate over making a delicious deal with his sweet maid was oddly quiet, brooding in the middle of his chest.

“Rumpelstiltskin?”

He turned to her, his eyes appraising her as she sat perched upon his very own stool in front of the window, the filmy white silk made to fall at a cathedral length. It positively swallowed her, pooling about the feet of her chair, making her hair burn beneath the sunshine a brilliant auburn, setting off her delicate white skin and wide, wide blue eyes. The worry in those eyes ground him to the spot.

Belle licked her lips, twisting her hands in her downy blue skirts nervously. “It’s not… it’s not cursed is it?”

“For the long ago princess I bartered from for it, no, it wasn’t then,” Rumpelstiltskin frowned at the thinness of his voice, clearing his throat and waving his hand. “How the devil did I know it would still work.”

“But what does it do?” Belle pressed, for the third time.

“It…” His hands formed in the air around her before falling with a defeated puff of a sigh. He couldn’t lie to her, and there was no way to spin this particular situation into something good. At least not to him. “…it’s magic that requires a bond to break it. There are many of these spells, usually enchanted upon items-”

“Why are you stalling?” Belle asked, her eyes narrowed at him.

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes flashed, snapping, “Well why did you put it on?”

His maid dropped her eyes to her hands immediately, looking as if to make herself as small as she could. “I…I saw it while I was dusting,” Belle said, her voice merely a whisper, and his annoyance tempered itself. She gave a half-hearted shrug, looking between smiling and crying. “It’s pretty. I knew I’d never have a chance to wear one, so I just…”

Her inability to look him in the eye tightened his chest, and he couldn’t breathe. She dreamed of marrying? Her bashfulness-that she should feel shame over having such a desire struck him. Did she think him so cruel he would ridicule her for…

“I suppose I didn’t allow for such a possibility,” Rumpelstiltskin whispered, his fingers itching to be at his wheel.

It wasn’t that he disapproved of her healthy curiosity, but what if it had been something truly dangerous? Every time his back was turned, she seemed to be falling from one peril to another, though he wasn’t sure when he started listening for it. Perhaps he always had been.

“What do I have to do to take it off?” Belle asked again, this time reaching up to touch the laurel of golden roses that rested on her crown that the veil attached to. It did look beautiful there, nestled in her auburn curls. He’d imagined in moments of silence that they must be soft, the way they fell about her shoulders.

“As I said it requires a bond,” Rumpelstiltskin came to stand in front of his work table which sat between them. He rested his hands upon the wood, staring at his poisons and potions and wishing it were as simple as that. His eyes closed of their own accord and he said, “The wearer must complete the role of the costume.”

There was no sound, save for the winds howling against the stones outside the windows. Rumpelstiltskin’s old heart ached as if it was going to end itself before he finally looked up at Belle. She sat unmoving, her eyes even wider than before, staring straight at him, her pretty little mouth half open in pause. Her left hand had risen up to touch the veil, and she seemed caught on the meaning of his words.

“I have to marry.” It pleased and sickened him that it wasn’t a question, that he wouldn’t have to explain it more to her and get her to understand the gravity of the situation. The corners of her mouth lifted ever so slightly, and Rumpelstiltskin felt his face darken.

“Yes,” he pushed away from the table, roughly, spinning on his heel. There was no use in punishing her-Belle hadn’t known what the veil was, so it wasn’t as if she were doing this to try to be free of him. She wouldn’t have known the consequences. Aside from that, it was his own fault for leaving such priceless objects out where she could get to them. His mind strayed to the idea of her hurting herself once again. He frowned, shaking his head as he came to stand by his spinning wheel, beginning to turn it, and threw his voice up as high as the rafters. “I’ll find you a prince by evening.”

“W-Wait-” The rustle of silk was a sweet sound, and he heard her huff as she hurried around to the other side of his wheel, staring up at him in distress. She was certainly no longer smiling. “What do you mean?”

“Well, dearie, you need a groom to get married, don’t you,” Rumpelstiltskin said nastily through the spokes, his eyes flickering away from her and back to the wheel. He had grown tired of this.

“You’re… letting me go?”

“Well I don’t intend to take on lodgers, especially newlyweds,” he muttered, his voice dripping with a bitterness he couldn’t recall acquiring for the subject.

“But…” Belle’s voice was soft and sounded just at the edge of tears. “But I don’t want a prince.”

Rumpelstiltskin looked up at her once more through the spokes of the wheel, and Belle lifted the hem of the veil as she came around it, careful not to catch any of the fabric upon the needle. She wavered just beside him, her fingers playing with the delicate lace embroidery on the edge that hadn’t yellowed or become a feast for moths. She stared down hard at her fingers, pressing her lips together before gathering her bravery from somewhere inside her and saying, “I was told my whole life I’d marry a man of… of great importance. Princes and knights and lords with riches and armies that would keep my people safe. And for a time, that was alright,” she glanced up at him, her eyes worried. She swallowed, and he watched her pale throat move with the motion. “It was my duty. But it was never what I wanted, and since you- _we_ made our deal, I already fulfilled that responsibility. I don’t intend to break it.”

“A charming speech,” Rumpelstiltskin murmured, his anger all but wrung out and only leaving behind a worn defeat that he couldn’t put a name to. He let his eyes rise up to her, feeling like a cornered animal.

Belle walked behind him to sit near him upon the spinning wheel, the veil so long that it curled about the wheel and his chair while still pooling at her feet. She reached out and laid her hand upon his leg, and for a moment all he could see was white.

“So if I’m to marry,” she said softly, carefully. Rumpelstiltskin realized belatedly that she was trying not to scare him-and worse, it was working. “I’d like it to be to someone I can have the pleasure of knowing.”

Rumpelstiltskin made an odd sound in the back of his throat. It was a feeling he couldn’t remember ever having before, like a moth trapped and wanting to get out. Belle watched him with earnest eyes, filled to the brim with the emotion of her plea. “And since I’ll only know one other person for my whole life,” she leaned forward, trying to catch his gaze and succeeding after he laid his hand over hers upon his leg. Her voice was breathless like she’d run a mile. “Why can’t it be you?”

The urge to make a quip, to shake off such closeness and put miles between them clawed inside his chest, but a small part of him that was just beneath his throat helped him find the strength to squeeze her hand back. He watched her tiny white fingers beneath his own, and cleared his throat. “A little unconventional, the bride proposing to the groom,” Rumpelstiltskin murmured, and felt a little smile of his own when she giggled.

Letting go of her hand, he found the only shred of bravery left to him and reached up to push the veil’s edges back over her shoulders, his fingers grazing her chestnut curls and finding them just silky as he imagined. Belle leaned forward as he did and pressed a gentle kiss to weathered cheek. Feeling her smile against his skin, he sighed deeply and for lack of better words, whispered, “You are the loveliest bride, Belle.”


End file.
